Power to the people
DO realize how lucky we Filipinos are to be living in one of the world’s top-ranking countries in terms of gender gap?
The Philippines may not be number one in this ranking globally, but according to the report of World Economic Forum (WEF), the Philippines is ranked eight globally. And if you think that’s not impressive enough, The Philippines is ranked eight out of 149 countries, and we are number one in the whole of Asia. The Philippines covers almost 80 percent gender gap equality meaning that we are just approximately 20% away from closing the gap. So what’s the fuss about this gender equality gap that we should be so proud of?
The Gender Gap Index refers to the equal treatment between the men and women and considering four values: Economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. WEF observes how equally men and women are being treated and if stereotyping is still being observed in the community.
In terms of the health and survival factor, all the countries have almost the same scores, which makes it quite difficult to compare to other counties. Then according to several news report sites, such as ABS-CBN and CNN Philippines, the Philippines has total equality between men and women in the Educational Attainment factor, showing that there is gender equality in our educational system. This means that anyone in the Philippines regardless of gender are privileged to learn. Wherein other countries such as the Middle-Eastern countries who still do not see women fitting to have tertiary education. Under the economic participation and opportunity factor, women can be easily hired in the Philippines. Whereas in South Korea, women have a hard time seeking jobs because of Korea being a male-dominated country according to Sophie Jeong’s article in CNN World’s website. Lastly, under the Political Empowerment factor, the Philippines, compared to the United States, has had female Presidents namely, Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In fact, according to CNN Politics’ site, Corazon is the 12th earliest woman recorded to be a leader of a country.
Despite those setbacks, it is safe to assume that we are slowly improving as the Philippines has reached its highest score recorded in the gender gap index, and has been gradually been improving since 2006. We are not yet a developed country, but we are slowly getting there. Joei